One in a Million: The Mines of the Highvermen
by I Will Not Die
Summary: The Seventh Doctor and Ace get a distress call from the TARDIS, and go to investigate.  What they find in the Doctor's past is frightening.  The Third Doctor and Zell are keeping something from the future.  The Doctor always knew Ace was one in a million.
1. Chapter 1

"So what's your thoughts Doctor?" The blonde headed girl asked as she walked around the old mans desk.

There sitting was the strangest of looking men, and he stood out like a sore thumb. He wore clothing that looked like it came right out of the 19th century. With all the frill and bright colors. He looked like he was in his 40's, but if you ever asked him, he would say he's only 400.

She leaned on the desk and stared at him, waiting for him to reply.

"Hm?" He asked, not looking up from his experiments.

She rolled her eyes.

"The missing people, what might have happened to them?" She asked.

"Oh, well, I haven't the slightest idea." He replied.

She sighed loudly and paced around the room. It had been a week since the first missing person, now ten people had completely disappeared. Where they had gone to was a complete mystery.

The Brigadier had put the Doctor at the head of the investigation. Though the Doctor kept insisting that the Brigadier had acted quite strange. But he shrugged it off and started working out how this all had happened.

But all he had worked out so far was that the people that had disappeared were of "little intelligence" as he put it.

"So Doctor, what have you come up with?" The Brigadier asked as he barged through the doors to the Doctors office.

He walked over and shook the girls hand, like he always did.

"My dear Lethbridge-Stewart, I haven't gotten any further in this case then what I was ten minutes ago." The Doctor replied, his voice sounded annoyed. He still didn't look up from his experiments, seeming to be glued to it.

"What are you doing anyway?" Asked the girl, walking up to the Doctor and getting a better look at what was going on.

"You wouldn't understand it if I said." He replied.

That comment obviously annoyed her, cause she crossed her arms and walked away.

The Brigadier just sighed and rolled his eyes. The two always seemed to act like this. Though the girl was always mentioning that she had a good relationship with the Doctor, he never saw it.

"Well, if you find anything new, contact me immediately." The Brigadier finished before walking out of the room.

"Zell, could you hand me that beaker?" The Doctor asked, reaching a hand out towards her, but not looking away from his work.

The girl, Zell, nodded and quickly handed him the beaker. She stood there watching him, still wondering what this experiment had to do with the missing people? She scratched the back of her neck as she thought it over.

"Is there something wrong?" The Doctor asked.

"Hm?" Zell replied.

"Well, it's just that, that is the tenth time I have seen you scratch that part of your head since you brought in breakfast." He commented.

"Oh, I think it's UNIT's conditioner, not good for the scalp." She replied.

"Really? I haven't had that problem." He joked, smiling up to her.

She smiled back, leaning in again to examine his work.

"Can't you try to explain what your doing Doctor?" She asked, this time making her voice seem sweeter.

"You know actually, I don't have the faintest idea what I'm doing." He replied.

Zell scoffed and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"You never tell me anything." She replied.

Just then, the Doctor jumped up, dropping the beaker onto the table. Thrusting an arm at Zell, he made his mark right in the middle of her chest, forcing her on her back.

"What are you doing?" She shouted, looking up at him surprised.

But he didn't reply, jumping back to the table, he began to smash test tube after test tube into the bubbling liquid. Then the whole thing erupted and the room filled with a white haze.

Zell gasped for breath as the air began to thin, and the temperature began to plummet. She scratched at the TARDIS's doors, trying to get them open. It was the only thing she could think of to save both her and the Doctors lives.

Bursting through the Police Box doors, Zell scrambled to the control panel in the center of the room. Stumbling as she reached it, she looked over the many buttons and dials. Barely able to think straight due to the lack of oxygen, she wasn't quite sure what she was suppose to do.

Leaning over the console, she jammed a coded message, and with a yank of a lever, sent it through time and space.

"Oh Doctor, please find it..." She gasped as she collapsed to the ground.

-Cue Doctor Who theme-

!i!i!i!i!

"Str-r-range," the Doctor mumbled as he stared at the TARDIS's console. There was a new button. Or at least a button he had never taken notice of before. Suddenly he was torn from his contemplation, every single light on the console flashed all at once.

"Well, that was pretty, what'd you do now Professor?" came Ace's sarcastic voice from somewhere slightly behind him. She stepped closer to better see the spectacle.

"Not now, Ace!" the Doctor said as he ran around the console, pressing buttons at random. Then, as abruptly as it started, the light-show ceased. One light remained lit for a split second, before, it to, went dark. The screen in the wall opened on it's own accord and Gallifrain script galloped across its surface.

Reading the message, the Doctor's face grew darker than the light. He once again turned his attention to the buttons on the console, and this time, he only pressed one. Ignition.

The TARDIS would bring them were they were needed. Indeed, it was already there.

Ignoring the sound of Ace's surprise at a take off without a million tiny adjustments, a witty comment, or a bumpy landing, the Doctor wrenched open the TARDIS's door. He was met with a face full of white smoke and the mental slap of a once hidden memory.

He could keenly hear the sounds of screaming through the thick haze that had settled in his mind. It was painfully dark, so dark that it was almost heavy. He could feel ropes binding his arms to an object in front of him. The doctor tried to turn his head, to find the source of the ear splitting screams. Finding that his head was also bound to the object in a similar fashion, he attempted to bring his hands up to the knot that held his head still. Regrettably, the knots where very well tied, and his hands were not going to move. He sighed, then noticed that he could no longer hear the screams.

How did I get here? The thought was greeted by a blow to the head from behind. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it did cause him to see spots in his vision. Someone placed a cold hand on the back of his neck, lightly stroking the shock of white blonde hair upward and away, leaving his neck exposed.

"You will soon be joining our ranks, Doctor," a gruff voice announced to the back of his head, "We already have...obtained your little friend, the Yiloran," the voice began to laugh in an almost mechanical way. It gave the Doctor the distinct impression that his captor had new lungs or a very ill used sense of humor, this thought was quickly replaced with the urge to put his hand into the man's esophagus and make sure Zell was safe.

"Zell is of no use to you, let her go, it is me you obviously want I-" he was cut off, rather rudely by his captor's wheezing laugh.

"That is where you are wrong, Doctor, you are so very, very wrong," the Doctor felt his hair being pushed aside once again leaving his neck exposed. A dry, hard object was pressed against it, and for the first time in an extremely long time, the Doctor felt fear well up in him like the swelling of the tides as the object pierced his skin and began to burrow. He bit back the urge to scream, not wanting to give his torturer the satisfaction of his pain. The hand pressed the object deeper, as if persuading it ever deeper. Finally, the Doctor had no choice but to scream, his torturer had reached his spine, and the feeling of that painful device latching onto his bone was too much to bare. The last thing he heard before he lapsed back into unconsciousness was Zell's desperate voice cry out one word...

"Doctor," a pause "Doctor?" Ace's face came into focus. The Doctor lay on the floor of the control room in the TARDIS, apparently he had passed out. He brought his hand up to the back of his neck and touched it gingerly, half expecting to feel the warm trickle of fresh blood.

"I think," he said slowly to Ace's concerned face, "that we may have a bigger pr-r-roblem than I thought." He accepted Ace's helping hand and stood up. The door of the TARDIS was ajar, but the smoke seemed to have dissipated. Grabbing his hat, the Doctor once again pushed open the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Zell groaned and opened her eyes slowly. She then quickly blocked her face with her hands, the light was way to bright. Slowly, she allowed her eyes to adjust and she climbed up on her elbows. She groaned again. Her arms hurt, her head hurt, heck, her everything hurt. Better yet, her head throbbed. The worst part of it all was that she couldn't remember what had happened.

Slowly climbing to her feet, she used the TARDIS's console to support her. Holding her head in her hands, she leaned against the console for a moment. She tried to focus on what had happened, but her head felt like it was full of fog. She shook it lightly, whatever had happened had effected her memory. She sighed and allowed her arms to drop to her sides. Just then she looked up and her eyes caught onto something, something red. Zell gasped, it was the Doctor.

"Doctor!" She shouted, running and falling to the ground next to him.

Hovering over him, Zell looked into his unconscious face.

"Doctor?" She lightly smacked his face. "Doctor?"

The Doctor snorted then slowly opened his eyes. When they focused, he turned and looked to Zell.

"Hello Zell, what happened?" He asked, his voice completely calm.

Zell smiled, she was relieved to find that he was alright.

Climbing to her feet yet again, she held a hand out to him. Without hesitating, he took it and once on his feet, fixed his coat.

"Well, maybe we can get some answers outside of the TARDIS." The Doctor suggested, pressing a button to open the doors.

Taking a step out, the two stopped. Zell looked at the Doctor, her face showed confusion.

"Doctor, what happened?" She asked, pointing to the desk.

It was a mess, like a mountain of glass. It was hard to tell what had been on the table before everything shattered. A clear liquid dribbled from the glass to the floor. The Doctor stepped away from the TARDIS and straight to the desk, looking over the mayhem. He picked up a beaker that seemed mostly intact and examined it.

Zell on the other hand, noticed something more shocking, a second TARDIS. Right next to the one that they had just walked out of.

"Doctor?" She asked, not looking away.

The Doctor slowly turned his head, wondering what else could be wrong? Shaking his head as his eyes fell across what Zell seen, he wondered if he was seeing things.

"Doctor, can this? How did this? What?" She said, shaking her head and smiling with disbelief.

"Hm, I'm not sure Zell, I'm not sure." The Doctor replied.

Zell wondered why the Doctors voice didn't sound so surprised, but then again, there wasn't to many things that did surprise him.

"Do you think it's just an illusion or real?" She asked, taking a step closer.

The Doctor didn't answer.

"Look!" Zell shouted, and pointed, jumping back to the Doctor for protection. Just then, the doors to the TARDIS started to open.

"Who are you?" the voice cut through the stale air with precision. Ace was not one to beat around the bush, and these two 'clowns' had obviously caused the mist that had made the Doctor pass out. She looked them up and down. Her eyes took in the tall man, nearly a foot taller than the Doctor, wearing velvet, for the love of God, velvet. His shirt was frilled and it matched his shock of white blonde hair. Ace smirked at the dandy, no doubt some scientist who had botched an experiment. Now, the girl was a different matter. For one, Ace could clearly tell she was not human, though she wasn't sure what the blonde was. Her clothing was what gave her away, to Ace, it was obvious, the bright swirl of colors beneath a muted shawl, and those boots, well they were clearly from another time, if not planet.

Ace crossed her arms even as the Doctor cleared his throat to speak.

"That, my Ace, is me," Ace's head turned from the Doctor to the dandy and back, unable to understand.

Zell stared at the little man standing next to the rude girl. How could this be? How could this ever be? She just couldn't wrap her mind around it. Standing there for a moment, the Doctor, her Doctor finally broke the silence.

"First of all, who are you and what are you doing in my laboratory?" He asked firmly, his lisp standing out more than usual. "And secondly, what are you talking about shorty?"

He gave them the "I don't like you at all" look that Zell had grown use to. He always gave that look to anyone but Liz, his first companion. It was cold, and always made Zell's skin crawl. It was also a sign that the Doctor was not amused.

"You old fool," Ace's Doctor said, poking him in the nose with the tip of his umbrella, "I should think that you would know," he paused, thinking over his words, apparently he didn't recognize himself, and that could be a problem. Something must be preventing the recognition. "I am you, the future you, and," he paused again, but this time for the effect more than anything else (always playing the "game", thought Ace), "you called me here."

There it was, thought Ace. This "Doctor" must have tried to contact him, but for some reason, he wasn't acknowledging it for some strange reason. Ace put on her best frown and with the force of years on the road she put her natural authority into her words, trying to sound important.

"I am Ace," she looked at the girl with death in her eyes, "I want to know why you called us here," she fingered some nitro9 in her pocket.

"Yes Zell, explain, everything." The taller Doctor said firmly, looking to her.

Zell looked to the short Doctor and Ace, then to her Doctor.

"Well, to start off with a quote from, well, you. He was you, you will be him." She said, smiling.

She didn't care if the Doctor got it or not, he would understand it in a few regenerations, but for now it explained it on a low level.

"As for us calling them, I don't remember doing so. Did you Doctor?" She asked, tilting her head.

"No..." The Doctor hummed, putting a finger to his lips.

"Are you suggesting that someone was capable of using the TARDIS's communications?" The scottish Doctor shuddered at the thought.

"Well it had to be me," the other Doctor replied quickly, "I am the only one that can-"

"You mean one of us." Zell butted in. "I know how to use it too."

She put her hands to her hips and gave him an annoyed look.

"You? Not possible." The Doctor replied.

Zell just scoffed and crossed her arms.

Ace inhaled sharply and looked at the Doctor, who was busying himself by examining the handle of his umbrella. He seemed to sense her eyes stabbing him, and he turned and flashed a quick smile. Ace continued to glare at him until the smile dissipated and the Doctor replaced it with a look that Ace would have described as "puppy eyes".

"You said you couldn't teach me-"

"I said that 'I' couldn't teach you, I never said that any one of my personas couldn't have managed," he cut her off, and he thought for a moment, "I think it was during my fourth...I may have been drinking, in fact, I think I had been for days." He looked at Zell, eyes sparkling, "It was right after I left Sarah Jane, and Zell here," he gestured at the girl, "was left alone in the TARDIS to fend for herself. Oh, I was in the TARDIS, I'm still not sure where-"

"When I found you, you where in your dressing room with your scarf tied to your waist. And lets just say it wasn't the prettiest of pictures." Zell cut in, trying hard not to remember that night.

"As I was saying," the Doctor said loudly, wishing there were an 'R' in that sentence, he would have rolled it for as long as he could, just to annoy the woman, "One of you had to call us using the TARDIS, now, I demand that you tell me what you are about," he turned to Ace, "Ace, would you mind running back inside to get my hat, it fell on the floor," he wasn't sure if Ace would see the diversion for what it was, and he crossed his fingers in his pocket.

Ace noticed that the Doctor's usually covered head was bare, and, even though she knew it was just a way of getting her out of the room for some reason, Ace did something totally unexpected. She listened to the Doctor and obediently turned to the TARDIS, but before she entered the blue box, she turned her face back to the Doctor.

"You need it so you're old self doesn't see that bald spot, right?" She asked coyly before slipping in. The Doctor placed his hand onto the top of his head without thinking. The dark brown curls were as thick as the day he had regenerated into this short, scottish form. Ace was paying him back. He couldn't help but roll his eyes when he realized Ace was just humoring him.

"Fourth?" The Doctor next to Zell blurted out. "Then what number is he?"

He pointed to the other Doctor, one eyebrow raised.

"The seventh incarnation, and I must tell you, some of our pr-r-revious weren't nearly as accommodating as I," he made sure that every 'R' in that sentence had a good time being rolled, just to savor the look on his previous self's large-nosed face.

"Good god, seven of me?" The Doctor said to his self, tapping his lip.

"Yes yes, you are always amazed at how many there are of you. But right now we have a bigger problem," Zell interrupted, waving her hands, "who contacted a later you, how, and why?"


	3. Chapter 3

"That's exactly what I've been trying to figure out, Zell," the short Doctor said, gently tapping Zell's small upturned nose.

Zell smiled shyly, she secretly loved when he did that.

Ace could hear the Doctors' voices from inside the TARDIS, and she strained her ears to better hear the muffled sound. She could just barely make out the quick, sharp voice of her Doctor, and he sounded angry Ace judged by the rolling of his 'R's. She nudged open the TARDIS door, carrying a few more things than just the Doctor's hat. She dropped them all. The Doctor jumped back a bit from Zell.

The objects clattered to the floor, and Ace automatically bent to pick them up, an excuse not to show her reddening face. Something that small shouldn't cause her to be so jealous. The Doctor had tapped Zell's nose, an expression of familiarity usually saved for his- saved for Ace.

Zell sharply turned and noticed Ace then the objects she had been carrying fell. It was a surprising sound and cut through the mostly quite room like a hot knife through butter. To save the least, it had almost caused her to jump back as well.

Her Doctor, on the other hand, didn't jump in surprise. No, he jumped in fear. Something that Ace had been holding that he hadn't noticed until it dropped to the ground scared the living daylights out of him.

Zell didn't understand, what was it that was scaring the Doctor like this? She looked over the items, they seemed harmless. There was the Doctor's hat (obviously), some sort of scanner, a pen, and what Zell hoped weren't explosives.

"Uh, what's that?" Zell asked, pointing to the what she thought looked like a few cans of hairspray.

"It's shark-spray, Doll," Ace said, using the dripping sarcasm to cover her momentary surprise. When in doubt use sarcasm, that's what life had taught her. Her Doctor flinched at the noticeable sarcasm directed to Zell. Ace was pulled into a deeper annoyance with the girl. First she had been taught (sorta) how to use the TARDIS communications, then a nose-tap, and now, now the Doctor was concerned about the tone in Ace's voice. Ace stood up, once again holding her stack of objects. She managed to throw the Doctor his hat, as well as a dirty look.

Zell rolled her eyes, just because she had never met Ace (yet), didn't mean she didn't know better. She knew what those cans were, and if her Doctor knew, then Ace would get an ear full.

"And what is with the scanner?" Zell's Doctor quickly butted in.

He had taken a step back out, seeming to have recovered from his scare. Zell just gave him a quick look. Not wanting to give herself away, but to try and figure out what was going on.

"If you are in need of equipment, then you can just use mine," his words seemed forced, as if he was trying to hide something, "they work just as well as yours."

"What's wrong Doctor? Don't want to be shown up by your future self?" Zell joked, trying to lighten the mood, but it was only replied with a cold glance from him.

"I didn't tell her to get the implements, she found the need for them herself. Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make earlier," he paused for a quick breath and a sideways glance to Ace, trying to tell her to put those blasted cans away before his former self took interest in them, but by the way he was eyeing the scanner, the doctor wasn't too sure that he would even notice the nitro9, "when we ar-r-rived here, I was...struck with a sudden memory of being you," the Doctor drove his deep blue eyes into his taller, younger, self.

"That is not important right now, there for I truly don't care." He interrupted the stare sharply.

The Doctor was taken aback, he was sure he didn't remember ever being quite so rude in that incarnation. Sure, he was rude now, but he had changed a few times, and Ace wasn't exactly the best influence, or was it the other way around?

"But it is important right now, it was a scene of, well, it wasn't pretty, but it seemed real enough," he paused, thinking a bit, aware of the stare that Ace was currently giving him, "it's starting to fade now, that's funny, as if it were a dream," his eyes glazed over, as if he were looking at something far off.

"Oi, Professor, why didn't you say anything before?" Ace questioned him quietly, grasping his arm and leading him a short distance away, hopefully out of earshot, "that, and there's defiantly some funny business going down. I'm not sure if you noticed-"

"Of course I noticed Ace," his sharpened words bit into her, "it's definitely me, but, I don't remember any of this, so either something happened to my memory along the way, or I closed it off and chose to forget about it."

"But professor, why would you do that?" Ace gave him a pleading look. She had been with the Doctor long enough to know when he wasn't telling the whole truth. He was the man behind the chessboard, after all.

"That is what I am suspicious of Ace," he glanced back to his other self who was who was giving them both an expression that showed he was wondering what they were talking about, "I have no idea what caused me to block these memories. It must have been deep, because I can't remember them as he, I , make them. If I hadn't been so keen in forgetting them, then I would be experiencing them both at once. A funny thing, really" Ace braced herself for a complex lecture on how remembering and experiencing at the same time could work, and he would effectively be making memories at the same time in two different bodies, "I could remember," he began, "I could remember," he looked at Ace, "What's wrong?"

Ace's boredom must have been apparent on her face, and he hadn't even started yet. She made a mental note to do it more often.

While Ace snatched the other Doctor away and talked to him in private, Zell turned to hers, she wanted some answers.

"What's with you?" She started, giving him a confused look. "Why are you acting like this?"

"What do you mean?" He replied, trying to make it seem like nothing was wrong.

Zell slumped slightly, giving him a "serious?" look.

"Don't play dumb, I know you to well," she replied, crossing her arms lightly, "not only are you being very defensive, you act like you have no idea what's going on." The last part was said in a surprised tone.

"I don't know what's going on." His only reply.

"That is very out of character for you." She said quickly, she was starting to worry.

"Which character of me are you judging this on?" He asked, pointing to the shorter Doctor. "Him or me?"

"You know what I mean," Zell shouted, a little louder than she meant to, "stop keeping me in the shadows."

She got closer to him, looking straight up to look him in the face. He only shook his head, scoffed lightly, and walked back over to the table.

Leaning on it, he tried to ignore her, but she knew all to well about this trick. All his tricks, so he couldn't really hide from her.

"Doctor, there is something very wrong here, and your acting like it's just a small bump in the road." She said, motioning to the Doctor next to Ace.

He didn't reply.

"Fine, I guess it's all up to me to save the world...again." She sighed, walking away from him and towards the other Doctor.

"Uh, Doctor?" She called, holding a hand in the air. "Do you think I could have a look at the message you received? It may help determine not only which one of us sent it but why." She said, smiling shyly.

"That would work, but the message was really quick, and a bit scrambled," he turned his head to better look at her, his eyes blazing, "Almost as if the person was in a panic, a hurry, in trouble," after the last bit, the Doctor let his eyes say the rest. He knew who sent the message, or at least he was almost sure he did. And in a case like that...

"Oi, old man!" called Ace to the "Dandy" Doctor, "What about checking your own TARDIS and seeing if the message was sent from there?" she looked pleased with herself, like she thought the idea was incredibly witty. Ace walked up to the desk he was standing next to and deposited the nitro9, the pen, and finally the scanner onto its already cluttered top. A bright object caught her eye and she read the label: glycerin. Her hand reached for it, to get a better look. It wasn't everyday that she could get her hands on some high grade-

"What do you think your doing," the Doctor shouted, his arm shooting across the table and snatching Ace's hand, "do you want to blow us all to kingdom come?"

Ace's eyes widened with surprise. This Doctor's, The Doctor's cool hand felt so familiar, so much like the short scottish fellow's, so much like...home. Ace's momentary surprise was short lived, for she struggled against the almost too-tight grasp of a man trained in so many different fighting styles. She was an adult, she had been making her own explosives back when she was sixteen. Back before the Doctor. In his unrelenting grasp, Ace hit his arm with her free hand.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, "Have you gone mental?"

"No, it's just you were-" The Doctor stopped, his eyes were focused on something, his mouth gaped. He seemed to be in some sort of trance. Ace used the opportunity to slip free and run to the short Doctor.

By now Zell had heard the commotion and ran up next to her Doctor.

"Doctor, what is it?" She asked, following his gaze to the table. At first she didn't see anything or understand why he would be like this, but then she noticed the scanner. It must have been what had frightened him before.

"What, this?" She asked, picking the scanner up and holding it towards him.

The Doctor instantly broke from his motionless stare and turned to Zell sharply, slicing his right hand at her. Zell fell to the ground, the scanner sliding off in the distance.

"Ace was right, you are mental!" She shouted.

"I usually am!" Ace yelled at her from across the room, she always had to have the last word. The Doctor stepped out in front of Ace, shielding her from himself.

"My dear Doctor," he called, imitating the taller Doctor's voice to near perfection, "I don't think she meant to harm you," he exaggerated the lisp, wanting whatever was causing his former self to act in such a way to leave Zell alone. The Doctor calmly began to step closer to his taller self.

The crazed Doctor was about to go into another attack on Zell, one which she knew to well, when his smaller self spoke to him. He slowly turned his head to him, seeming to be confused, once again in a trance like state. Zell took this moment to slowly, carefully, not wanting to catch his attention, crawl towards Ace and the other Doctor. She didn't want to be close to her Doctor when he snapped out of the daze. She could just picture what he would do to her, she shivered slightly.

"Well?" He asked, still imitating the other's voice, "What do you have to say for yourself? Hmm? Attacking young woman..." he continued speaking, not really paying attention to what he was saying. As he was speaking, he inched in front of Zell, blocking her from view. Suddenly, he turned and grabbed Zell and Ace by the hand and pushed them into his TARDIS, tossing the key in with them. He slammed the door and turned around to face his past.


	4. Chapter 4

Snapping from the trance, the Doctor turned quickly as the doors to the TARDIS shut. The shorter Doctor being the only one left outside. Slowly, he took a step closer towards him.

"Doctor?" Zell shouted, pounding the inside of the TARDIS's doors.

What was going on? Why did he think he needed to protect her? He knew she could protect herself, it was him that needed protection.

Ace stood and stared at the door of the TARDIS and the hysterical Zell. The Doctor had pushed her out of the fight. She couldn't believe it. For the first time, she wasn't the one on the front line, with her baseball bat. It was the Doctor who was. And although Ace did know he was capable of taking care of himself, she found it difficult to leave the action and let fate decide. Besides that, this other Doctor was much bigger than her Doctor and Ace could tell that he couldn't easily be overpowered. Ace walked up to Zell and grabbed her hands, she didn't want Zell to hurt herself in her zeal to be released.

"Oi!" She gasped, "You better cut that out, the Doctor threw this in after us," she held up the TARDIS key that had landed on the floor next to her, "the Doctor wouldn't part with this unless it was extremely important that," she looked for what to call the other Doctor without upsetting Zell. She was pretty sure that 'batshitcrazy Doctor' would. "Extremely important that Three didn't get the key to this TARDIS, and I think," Ace paused, letting go of Zell's hands, "that we should stay in here," she thought a moment, "for a while at least."

Zell stood there and listened to what Ace had to say. She was right, everything she had said was right. She shouldn't have overreacted like that.

"Yeah..." She replied, her voice like a whisper. "But if were going to stay in here, I at least want to know whats going on!" She said loudly, walking over to the TARDIS's console.

She looked it over for a moment, she wasn't as used to this one as she was with the others. She couldn't remember which button activated the screen so they could see what was happening outside the TARDIS.

"Uh, Ace, which button opens the screen?" She asked, pointing to where she remembered the screen was.

Ace walked up to where Zell stood at the controls. She didn't know how to work the TARDIS, but he thought she could manage what with all the times she had seen the Doctor do it. He made flying the TARDIS look, well, relatively hard, now that she thought about it. Ace looked at the buttons littering the console, one stood out against the rest. Flashing a livid pink, it was slightly oblong and in an area where she was sure she had seen the Doctor touch to open the screen. She shrugged and jammed a finger down onto it. Suddenly the air was alive with a high pitched wail that made Ace smash her hands against her ears. The sound was nearly deafening.

Zell's eyes opened widely at the sudden blare of sound, then shrank into herself as she tried to cover her ears. She looked over to Ace, almost ready to hit her.

"What the hell!" She shouted. "What did you do?"

"What?" Ace couldn't hear the other girl, but she was pretty sure Zell was pissed.

Hell yes Zell was pissed, her eardrums were about to rip apart. Running over, she forcefully pushed Ace out of the way, then slammed her fist down on the button, the noise suddenly cutting off.

"Why the hell does the Doctor have that button?" Ace gasped, looking at her fingers to make sure her ears were not bleeding.

Zell shrugged, she didn't even remember that button. "I have no idea."

Ace looked Zell directly in the eye and glared. This girl should be able to run the TARDIS, then what was the problem? Then, she realized, the Doctor was a very vague person -erm Timelord. Zell could be in the same boat as Ace.

"Maybe it's near the same place it would be in you TARDIS?" Ace suggested. She wanted to know what was going on outside those soundproof doors. Ace turned away from the console for a moment to find her bat. She may not be able to use it, but it still brought her some form of comfort. In her hands, it made her feel powerful. She grabbed it and turned back to Zell.

Zell tapped her chin, where was the button located on her Doctors TARDIS?

"Hm," she hummed, walking around the console slowly, "Ah, this is the button." She said, pressing a small silver button.

Behind her the soft sounds of mechanical whirring hummed as a screen appeared on the wall. She turned around and smiled, she was right.

"Now which button to see what's outside?" She asked herself, looking again at the console.

She stood there for a moment, her eyes darting from one switch to another, then she slowly leaned down and cranked a nob to the right. The screen flickered, went dark again, then light up like an old TV.

Both Ace and Zell looked up, their eyes targeting the screen. It depicted the two men, the same man, circling around each other. As the screen brightened, the taller dashed to meet the other and delivered an uppercut that sent him sprawling, dazed. Zell quickly closed her eyes and looked away, cringing at what she had just seen. Ace tightened her grip on the bat she held, and growled, rage clearly evident rushing through her hot veins.

The Doctor tried to shake the stars from his vision. When was the last time he had seen that nebula? It wasn't important now, he decided as he caught sight of his former self stalking toward him. He struggled to his feet, painfully noticing that his legs felt like they had been replaced by Jell-o. My my, that's what it feels like to be punched by me, he thought. The taller Doctor was upon him now, and the short Doctor was aware that he was just that, short. This man towered over him, it made him feel like he was slowly shrinking into the floor. Well, he thought, I'll just have to remedy that.

The brolly handle shot out and caught hold of the other Doctor's collar and yanked him down a foot. With his face at eye level, the shorter Doctor couldn't help but hesitate. Clearly there was something terribly wrong with him that would make him act in such a way. He noticed that his eyes were glazed over and reached to touch the blonde temple to try to read his own mind. But just then his former self tried to grab hold of his neck and strangle him, so he punched him squarely in the defined nose, twice in rapid succession. He flinched as he heard and felt the break, and looked up to see the blood trickling down from the now crooked nose. He stumbled as a new memory forced itself to the surface of his mind.

He felt the sharp pain of the break in his nose, but it was dulled by the throbbing in his head. All he knew was that to make the pain go away, he had to defeat the enemy, had to subdue him. The fog prevented him from remembering who the enemy was, just that he was there in the room with him. He caught sight of him again and squashed the little remaining thoughts of letting him run with a new wave of pain. He once again advanced.

His hands were over his eyes, trying to block out the light. Something was in there, controlling his former self. The Doctor now knew that he couldn't win this with reason, in fact, he very much doubted he could win at all.

The larger Doctor stumbled back, letting go of the tiny man. The pain shot through his head and down his spine. Every nerve in his body shook with pain. He held his face in his hands, blood seeping through his fingers. He cried out, most of it was muffled by his hands. Backing into the table that held the failed experiment, he stopped momentarily, hunched over.

Then, slowly he lowered his hands from his face and allowing them to fall to his sides, he eyed the short Doctor. His eyes blazed with hatred, and that glare was targeted at the enemy.

The smaller Doctor tilted his head to the side and let his shoulders sag. In a battle of the wits, he could win, but this man had no wits and when it came down to shear brute force, he was found lacking. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off rather efficiently by the wind being knocked from his body.

The larger Doctor had rushed at him, forcing his shoulder into the smaller mans chest. Shoving him against the TARDIS, pinning him down. He raised his arm against the little scottish Doctor's neck, as if to try and choke him. An eery smile played across his face as he forced his arm down harder.

The seventh incarnation struggled to breath. He brought his hands up to the other's arm, to try to raise himself higher and release the pressure from his neck. He felt a little give and used it to his advantage.

"D-d-doctor!" He wheezed, using his air to speak instead of fight. That was his way of fighting, well, without his ace, "Doctor," he wasn't used to addressing someone else as 'Doctor' either, "think about what you're doing! It's me, you!" He saw that there was no change in the glazed over look of his former incarnation, so he tried a different approach, "Think of Zell! What did you do to her? What will you do to her? You would never hurt her, would you?" He as running out of breath, but the small Doctor thought he had gotten through, he saw some spark of recognition, so he continued on the same vein, "Think of Liz! Jo? Think! Think of Sarah Jane! Oh, Sar-r-rah Jane," he couldn't help but roll the 'R', he was terrified that he was about to commit, for all accounts, a form of suicide, "Think of Jamie! Susan, you could never forget Susan!"

The Doctor could now see black spots, they lingered in the corners of his vision, but all he could do was talk, "Remember that time when Zell had just vanished, and you thought to yourself how much you miss her before she even disappears? Then she popped out of nowhere and landed on your lap? You hit your head pretty hard, but she was there...for..." he trailed off, out of breath and sweet darkness catching up with him. He could barely keep his eyes open let alone his memories straight, "remember...that time when Ace caught...looking...at the...stars...and you told her...about the nights under the open...skis...Gallefry?" The last thing he saw was a hand held out at an angle disappear to crash into his windpipe.

"Where did they go?" Zell shouted, running up to the screen, trying to get a better view. "They just vanished off of the screen."

She pointed where she had last seen them, but they were nowhere to be found.

Ace tore her eyes away from the screen to glance at Zell. She could hear the conversation, and the strain in her Doctor's voice. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she opened them again. She gripped her bat so that her knuckles turned white when she heard him talking about Zell, and how he could miss her. It wasn't fair. She wanted to burst out of the TARDIS, armed with her bat and give the taller Doctor a few good blows to the head, not enough to kill him, but enough to make him think twice about messing with her Doctor. Then she heard his voice fade to almost nothing as he mentioned her name and he spoke of the stars with his last breath. Tears prickled in her eyes when she could no longer hear his scottish lilt. She once again turned her eyes on Zell.

"They were outside the TARDIS, but I think they've gone..." she couldn't help but feel some resentment for the blonde girl who was so close to the Doctor, all of him.

Zell put a hand to her mouth, trying to cover her surprised worried look. Where would they have gone? Was the Doctor alright? She couldn't just stay in here any longer. She headed for the door, they both needed her.

Ace caught Zell's hand, she couldn't let her out.

"Oi! What ya think you're doing Doll?" She asked, "If you leave you'll just get into trouble, and trust me, that's the last thing that will help either of them," she gave Zell a pleading look that hardened over into a commanding one.


End file.
